The Sitter wins the Joan C Bell Prize with North American rights sold

We are pleased to announce that North American rights to Angela O’Keeffe’s latest novel, The Sitter, have been sold to Jim Gauer at Zerogram, in a deal brokered by our Rights and Contracts Manager, Erin Sandiford.

The sale comes after Zerogram awarded the US$10,000 (A$15,587) Joan C Bell Prize for an unpublished novel to The Sitter.

The Sitter is a multilayered work about a woman writing a novel based on Hortense Cezanne, the wife of the celebrated painter. Exploring the tension between artist and subject, and between the stories told about us and the stories we choose to tell.

O’Keeffe said of the sale:

‘It is lovely to think that my novel about love, loss and the reimagining of the spaces of the past will be reaching a diverse group of new readers. In addition, I feel very honoured to receive the Joan C Bell Award.’

Publisher Aviva Tuffield said:

‘Congratulations to Angela O’Keeffe, and to our excellent new rights manager, Erin Sandiford, for her first overseas rights deal for UQP. It’s yielded not only a North American rights sale but significant prize money for Angela—and anything that boosts authors’ incomes is a win from our perspective.’

We published the Australian edition of The Sitter in August 2023. The North American edition will be published in early 2024.